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Leveraging my earlier practice, my body becomes metal.
Bang.
My shoulder screams in agony, but the bullet falls at my feet.
“Oh, that won’t work,” he says. “I know what you actually look like.”
He does something, and my metallic body turns back into flesh.
Oh, puck.
He aims his gun again.
Chapter Eighteen
As fast as I can, I mess with the chemistry of the gunpowder in the Nutcracker’s weapon.
He squeezes the trigger.
The gun clicks, but no bullet comes out.
He hurls the gun at my chest.
I sidestep and make his feet heavy while weakening the structure of the floor underneath him.
The Nutcracker crashes through the floor.
“This is too scary,” Pom says and disappears.
I change my surroundings to those of the lobby in the gorgeous Harpa Reykjavik concert hall located in Iceland. If the Nutcracker isn’t from Earth—or is but has never visited this place—I might have an advantage.
He doesn’t appear.
Score.
I try to jolt myself awake.
It doesn’t work, and I soon hear why. It’s that cursed music—Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy—blasting from all around.
He must be here and is somehow preventing me from waking up.
But how? I’m supposed to be more powerful now. Has the Nutcracker also gotten more power since our last encounter? That doesn’t seem likely. Valerian was probably right when he said I need to internalize what I’ve gained.
Assuming I survive this encounter, that is.
In an eyeblink, the Nutcracker appears ten feet away from me and launches an angry tarantula at my face.
I leap to the side, then run up the wall, changing gravity and the traction of my feet as needed.
The Nutcracker chases after me with the clickety-clack of wood hitting metal and glass.
When I reach the windows facing the harbor, I make the glass melt under my feet. Swiftly, I fly out, landing on the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Nutcracker lands on the water nearby with ease. I guess he’s practiced walking on water as much as I have, or is a natural at it.
Without much ado, he throws a scorpion at my head.
I make a katana appear in my hand, a replica of the one I fought zombies with the other day. With a whoosh, I slice the scorpion in half, then lunge at my opponent.
My hope is that by walking on water and having to defend a close-up attack, he won’t have the bandwidth to mess with our environment.
My plan almost works. The katana strike lands, but the metal only cuts a shallow gash in the wood that is his chest.
Right. Wood is harder to penetrate than flesh.
A saber appears in the Nutcracker’s wooden hand just in time to parry my next strike. Puck. My own strategy is working against me now. When I try to melt his weapon, it doesn’t work.
A close-up fight was a mistake; unlike him, I’m made of flesh.
Maybe I can turn him corporeal to even the score? He gave me a clue as to how when he said he knows what I look like.
I swing the katana. He sidesteps and unleashes a barrage of his own attacks.
As I parry the onslaught, I realize I have a slight problem when it comes to making him corporeal.
I have no clue what he looks like.
Or do I?
The last dreamwalker I met was Maxwell, and he seemed suspicious to me.
Could this be Maxwell?
Parrying the next attack, I will him to take Maxwell’s shape—sad eyes, the mask, and all.
Nope. He’s still in the Nutcracker guise and must know what I failed to do because his already-evil grin looks infinitely more wicked.
Okay. Either this isn’t Maxwell, or I misunderstood how this works. Or he’s just more powerful. Or I need to know what Maxwell’s face looks like to get this right.
Ow!
All my ruminations have made me lose my battle concentration, giving the Nutcracker a chance to slice open my right forearm.
Ignoring the bleeding, I parry another dozen strikes as I attempt to control the environment again. Except a whale I try to conjure up doesn’t swim from under the water, nor does the water itself want to turn into magma under the Nutcracker’s feet.
Pucking puck.
My muscles are tiring from all the frantic Kendo moves I’m using. If I don’t do something soon, I’ll make a fatal mistake and that’ll be that.
No. Not when Valerian is guarding me in the outside world.
Not when I have a real chance to wake Mom.
Exiting my body, I play an ace I’ve been saving for the right moment. Instead of wasting time on healing my wound, I duplicate myself and jump into both bodies.
The me that is behind the Nutcracker slashes at his saber-holding wrist, effortlessly cutting through the wood. The Nutcracker’s human eyes widen—which is when both of me try the wake-up jolt.
It works this time.
A single me opens my eyes on the bed inside the inn.
Panting, I sit up.
Valerian leaps to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
